countries

Many years ago, when I first came to the U.S., I bought a place mat with the map of the world, thinking it would be kind of fun to brush up on my political geography. My plans never materialized.

A couple months ago we dug out that place mat to use for Elijah. It's laminated and easy to clean. Daddy showed him a couple of countries and it was an immediate hit. He can't get enough of it! We learned the big ones first (he liked the big orange one - Russia!) and then moved on to smaller ones. We even made it a little more challenging by naming each country in two languages. The two videos below are both in Russian, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what's going on.

two grandmas

Two grandmas came to visit us in December '08 and January '09, one of state and one out of the country. Their visits overlapped for a few days in January, during which Elijah had no lack of attention. Here are a few videos from their visits.